I kinda hate Tim Allen the person, but as we transition into Fall again, I find myself using Home Improvement as a nostalgia crutch. I rediscovered it last year and I just can't seem to shed my soft spot for it. It's like a bullshit, shining/happy version of my (decidedly not shining/happy) life at that time, I guess? It kinda had it's finger on the pulse of suburban life in the late 80's/early 90's, in an incidental (rather than profound) sort of way.

Finished Atypical season 2, got a little misty eyed during the finale when his mom is talking about all the things she hoped for him and realized we had seen him do all those things. I don't even know why because its not like I've gone through anything like that, but it was just nice to see and seemed very honest and real.

Maniac on Netflix. If you had told me Terry Gilliam had some sort of hand in it, I wouldn't have been surprised. As much as I typically dislike Emma Stone, and as much apathy as I normally have for Jonah Hill, I thought it was great. Justin Theroux, who I've never heard of before (even though apparently I've seen movies with him in them), was good, as well.

Season 8 of The Walking Dead on Netflix. Ugh...why...why do I keep watching it?

Maniac on Netflix. If you had told me Terry Gilliam had some sort of hand in it, I wouldn't have been surprised. As much as I typically dislike Emma Stone, and as much apathy as I normally have for Jonah Hill, I thought it was great. Justin Theroux, who I've never heard of before (even though apparently I've seen movies with him in them), was good, as well.

Season 8 of The Walking Dead on Netflix. Ugh...why...why do I keep watching it?

SEASON 12 OF MST3K ON NETFLIX ON THANKSGIVING!@!!! AHHH!!

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maniac was bizarre, but kind of endearing, kind of like a wes anderson film. i really enjoyed it and didn't expect to at all.

Justin Theroux is a weird guy to still have an acting career. I mainly know him from Mulholland Dr almost 20 years ago, where I thought he was cast almost as much of a gimmick as Billy Ray Cyrus. He's the nerd director whose girlfriend cheats with Billy Ray Cyrus so he robotically throws pink paint around in retaliation. He did not seem like an actor then, even though he was really funny. I guess he was legit. I for some reason thought he was a writer or director or something instead of an actor. Guess not.

I watched the rest of Better Call Saul last night. Season 3 is definitely a lot better. This season was back to not really having much happen apart from boring connect-the-dots stuff. Some of it was so cheesy and almost on the level of Darth Vader being put in the robot suit in Episode III (particularly the bell "reveal"). The stuff with Mike worked the best, as usual. Nacho's plot totally ran out of steam about halfway through. Kim and Jimmy just weren't as interesting as the last couple seasons IMO.

I love its utter refusal to even try to make people look younger. They'll do sudden cuts to Jimmy way back in 1992, and he still looks ten years older than he did on BB, so you can't tell that it's a flashback until they tell you. Same deal with cutting to Kim as a grad student, though she doesn't have a horribly receding hairline to make it look so silly.

I just started Trailer Park Boys season 12 after suffering through/half paying attention to seasons 8-11. It's shockingly good in comparison. I laughed my ass off at the scene in the second episode with Ricky trying to install a towel rack. Truly amazing, and definitely on par with the best scenes of the good ol' days. Their replacement for Lucy is also really funny and much better than what they had Lucy doing after the first several seasons. Trinity is still awful and it's too bad they stuck with that "actress" after she started growing out of just being a bratty kid. But, it's good they actually started doing something with the characters instead of unfunny retreads and awful celebrity cameos like the last few seasons.

I watched the handful of episodes of Always Sunny season 12 that were available on Delta's airplane service. I laughed so damn hard at the water park episode, especially the blood in the water at the end. PTSDee (with Dee trying to prove her worth to her stripper love interest) was also amazing, and the Making a Murderer episode was very clever. Oh, and "Old Lady House" with the contained sitcom in it was also great. I need to watch the rest of the season. I can't believe the show managed to be good for so long.

Started watching Better Call Saul’s new season. It’s fine. I don’t care about all of the subplots. Some episodes are definitely better than others for that reason. You get whole episodes with no Nacho and that is sad.

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Very true - he’s one of the most likeable characters, and his acting sucks you into his world. I was hoping for WAY more from this season, but it was still solid drama. I keep hoping that they’ve finally set the stage, and that the next season will take off... and that’s once again how I feel.

Very true - he’s one of the most likeable characters, and his acting sucks you into his world. I was hoping for WAY more from this season, but it was still solid drama. I keep hoping that they’ve finally set the stage, and that the next season will take off... and that’s once again how I feel.

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They're too close to BB for there to be anything left to "take off" IMO. Like really, what's left to happen?

Kim goes away, Nacho goes away, the hole in the ground gets finished and turned into the super lab (but Gail and Gus and Mike are already fully established), etc.

I had an odd like and dislike for this show when it first started. By the 3rd ep it really picks up and by the 4th it set itself in solid motion. The acting and cinematography is solid, but some elements of the story remind me of IT and Amityville horror. The horror element starts off a bit strong on the jump scare factor but resolves its self pretty quickly by focusing more on the the psychological side of things.

The characters and their lives are well structured and very believable in terms of the psychological effects they have later in their lives essentially. The stand out in performance comes from both the younger performance and older performance of the youngest brother.

Whilst occasionally it drifts into knowing how well the characters are structured and how well they are performed they have some monologues that could be shortened down but again they add a lot of depth to the story and performance.

Then they have an episode with an amazing continuous tracking shot that places you within the tension in the room and you witness all the emotions conveyed by the actors involved. At 17mins it is without a doubt one of the best filmed episodes of television that utilities this technique of cinematography since the episode of True Detective with the tracking shot in the suburbs.

I was so thoroughly impressed with how immersive it was that I didn’t really take into account that it was a one shot tracking take for at least 5 or so minutes. I didn’t state which episode it is simply because I think it’s worth waiting for when it comes in.

If your a fan of genres of film like Horror and Thriller this is probably a good series to dig into. As I’ve said the thing that really makes it great is the acting, because it handles the both genres really well whilst it ties into the drama element.

Give it shot, if anyone else has please let me know what your thoughts have been. I really don’t mind what kind of series I watch or what genre it is, I just like a good story with great acting.

I'd say that, at the beginning, it might seem off-putting as it lays on the family melodrama a little bit too thick, but it does pay-off for the most part. A lot of the creepy stuff & scares are extremely telegraphed, but some of the stuff is weird and fucked-up enough that it doesn't really matter. In the end, I think it told a good story and did its job as ghost story without veering into the modern "scary thing is a manifestation of real grief/trauma" territory.

My two favorite scares: In one of early episodes, one of the girls is having what turns out to be a dream about an incident at the house where there was banging on the walls, and the dad comes in to offer comfort and his voice breaks into this horrible, low groan- that's usually how my nightmares work, something is going normal until it just 'glitches'; the other is when Nell interrupts the argument in the car- I got totally caught off-guard, I yelled "Fuck!", and promptly went and topped-off my drink.

Another thing, Nell's fate is sneakily one of the most fucked-up things I've seen in mass-consumption pop culture. Being haunted by the specter of your own inevitable suicide? Makes her junkie brother's situation seem quaint by comparison.